Who's Afraid of Virginia Lucas?
by Hikari no Chibi
Summary: Ginny Lucas didn't mean to survive her whole family that night, and she certainly didn't mean to fall in love with the cross-bow wielding Abraham Van Helsing. A bawdy romance detailing Granny's younger days, because why the hell not?


_No, I'm not delusional, I just had to skin and cook a stray plot bunny. I've no illusions about this - if you're reading, it's probably because you follow me and were waiting for an update to my other story, Tea with the Devil, over in the RumBelle wing. Fret not, I've been putting out lots of other things lately, but there is new tea coming today. Promise! Now, for anyone left still reading: enjoy a little of the newly launched GRAN HELSING ship compliments of me._

It was a nightmare, not reality. Not real. Her entire family… She didn't mean to survive. Did her level-best to die of exposure in a snowbank, leaving the gaping claw-marks to spatter red across the thick white flakes.

She would find the man with the crossbow some day. His face was dark, his silhouette branded into her memory. The man was strong, held himself with an air of authority, smelled of garlic and something… something pungent. Quicksilver, maybe. He didn't give the doctor his name, simply dropped the lithe brunette — stained red and bloody — into his office and said he'd be back. Said to watch her, in case she started to change.

Ginny knew what they said behind her back. Wolf-bitch. Beast-whore. Murderer. It wasn't that they believed the words, but they were afraid. Scared witless of a waifish little girl and her big red scars. The village could burn for all she cared, their nagging couldn't mar her further. She already bore scars too deep for mere words to penetrate. Natural armor, deep skin: she'd changed.

And the wolf… the wolf would never leave. She saw its tracks in the snow circling her cabin, heard the horror stories of slaughtered sheep on the morrow of a full moon night. She wondered, mildly, if it was looking for her; waiting to finish what it had started the night it devoured her family.

As it turned out, this new wolf was smaller, darker, more sleek. It ransacked the village livestock, but they'd learned their lessons when the entire clan of Lucas men faced down the great he-wolf and had their spears shattered like twigs. When the wolf howled, the villagers locked their barns and latched the windows tight.

Then, when the village had abandoned her to her fate — to eek out a living hunting game and coaxing vegetables from land that doubled as a grave — the man returned. She recognized him, his posture, his clothing, his scent.

They said he made inquiries about the young girl he'd saved, wondered if she'd developed any… peculiarities. None of them could say for sure; they didn't associate with the Lucas girl. She'd heard the rumors, though, when she went to market to sell her brace of conies. The man was looking for her, and it was only a matter of time before he arrived at her cottage to investigate.

That was how Ginny, barely turned 19, met Mr. Abraham Van Helsing. He greeted Ginny with a crossbow and a grimace. She choked back a growl, and demanded he explain himself.

Abe was a student at the University of Avonlea, and his studies had taught him many, many things. Once the crossbow lowered, they spoke at length. Ginny hadn't received any company since the massacre, and this man… he'd saved her. She hated him, but she also owed him her miserable life. And — it was possible — that he'd seen something she hadn't that night.

Abe studied the histories, but his passion lie in hunting. He'd tracked the wolf to their village all the way from the Frontlands, but lost its trail in the night. Delivering Ginny to the doctor cost him the advantage he needed, and the tracks were snowed-over by morning.

The girl was his only lead.

He wanted to know all sorts of odd things about Ginny. Did she experience any changes in appetite since the attack? Had her wounds closed completely? Any new allergies? Ginny thought not, and Abe seemed disappointed.

"I'd thought," he stated in his dead-pan voice, "that perhaps the claw of the beast might bear some resemblance to its bite. Only time will tell, Miss Lucas. I wonder if you might indulge me for a fortnight, I should very much like to observe you for the remainder of the month — perhaps just until the full moon? I can pay you handsomely for the lodging."

"I fend for myself just fine, I don't need your money," Ginny barked back.

"Then I shall trade in my tenure as student and become the professor for a time. I can teach you how to use this, for instance," he indicated the crossbow. "You live alone, certainly the trade of a crossbow and two weeks of instruction for lodging is a fair one."

"You would part with such a rare weapon so easily?"

"I've three more like it in my wagon," he confessed, smiling for the first time.

Ginny loved him, loved him passionately from their first adventure hunting. He stalked his prey carefully, though he lacked the natural inclination for it that Ginny possessed. No one else in the village came close to matching her skill, and for the first time since losing her father and brothers, Ginny Lucas felt like she might not be so terribly, tragically alone.

But thinking like that was no good. He was leaving after the full moon, and she'd be alone again. Best to learn all she could, teach him a few tricks in passing — they might keep him alive some day — and part at the end of their unique transaction.

That was the plan, anyway. Before little Mary Peep turned up dead, drained of blood and sporting two small puncture wounds on her pallid, pale neck. Abe said he was sorry, that he had to go. He begged the village clergy to dispose of Mary Peep's body by beheading, staking and burning. No one wanted to admit what they suspected — vampyre. But Van Helsing knew. He stayed long enough to see his warnings ignored, and then a little longer to clean up the inevitable aftermath.

When Mary Peep's body rose from the grave, he was waiting. And so was Ginny. They put her down quickly, doing it right despite the clergy's complaints. He said again that he must leave, and Ginny nearly begged him to stay. She never wanted to be alone again.

In the end, she bit back the words. It wouldn't do to beg him — he felt nothing but curiosity toward her.

Abe did stay, but not because Ginny's resolve to remain silent weakened. They found another body. Then a third. The full moon was only two nights away, and the village fell to turmoil. Vampyres. Wolves. What next, goblins? Their panic and frenzy were palpable — another night of this, and they proposed calling Rumpelstiltskin for aid.

Abe wanted to hunt the thing and leave the Imp out of it entirely. Of course he did, he thought he could do anything. He was twenty seven, strong, broad, and a student at University. He thought he was invincible, that he could overcome the beast's magic and superior speed with strategy; didn't realize that tactical advantage meant nothing in the face of cunning and brute strength.

He was going to get himself killed. She'd seen her six older brothers, big as oak trees and taller than he, veterans of the Second Ogres War, cut down by something far more mundane than a vampyre. Abe wasn't a soldier. He was many, many things — but he'd never been to war. These things he hunted… they would tear his throat so fast, he wouldn't even have a chance to scream.

When she couldn't dissuade him, she tied her fate to his and started tracking the thing along side him. What did it matter if Ginny Lucas died along the high road? It wasn't like she had any life in the village worth keeping.

Abe looked severe, somehow older, in his hunting garb. This was the way she'd first seen him — leather duster, broad hat, and a never ending supply of weapons lashed to his body. The buckles and tie-downs across his chest sported everything she could imagine — tiny bottles, knives, sharpened stakes of wood, large clusters of dried herbs, scrolls…

"I need to tell you something before we go," he said. "I'm not just a student at University."

"No," Ginny replied. "You're an apprentice to the huntsman. That's what that mark means — my father showed me." She traced the insignia stamped on his collar.

"Then you know that I must hunt this thing, even if I die trying."

She knew. She had always known, really, just hadn't wanted to face the truth.

He couldn't follow the vampyre, though. At least not once it shattered into a hundred bats and moved like mist through the glades. But Ginny could. She could, and… she wanted him to kill the thing. Abe's eyes never lit with this kind of fire when he looked at her, and the intensity… maybe she was the fool of the pair, for believing in his great destiny, but seeing Van Helsing in action as they chased the vampyre through the night only magnified Ginny's feelings.

It aroused her, seeing him so predatory.

The full moon was tomorrow night, then he would leave. She would give him this, and if tragedy struck then at least it would strike true and she'd die in good company. So, with a hunter's heart, she led him to the vampyre's cave.

The battle nearly killed them both. She wasn't sure how, he with his crossbow and she with only her wits and agility, managed to survive to dawn. The thing, the vampyre, with sharp cruel fangs and a corpse's gaunt face, nearly bit him twice. Each time she bull-rushed it, grappled with it, and somehow escaped unscathed. They were panting hard when the sunlight hit, and — as soon as the vampyre hissed and blinked — Abe drove his stake into its chest.

That was one beast dead. Now only the wolf remained.

He looked at her, disheveled, dirty and panting in the new dawn light — really looked at her for a change. Ginny would wonder, later in life, whether it was the victory, the thrill of the hunt, or simply a celebration of life that brought them together. Maybe a combination of all three.

All she knew was his lips were upon her, exactly as she'd dreamed, and he was wearing entirely too much clothing. She dragged her teeth over his neck, peppered his gruff jaw with love bites, and clawed her way through his leathers and buckles.

His own large hands tore at her corset, but discovered her hidden knives before he managed to loose the stays. Ginny bucked wildly against him, and finally settled on freeing his hard cock from his breeches — rest of the man's overly complex clothing and gadgets be damned.

He finally settled on the same, and hiked her skirts up to being kissing her again - this time up and down her slender thighs. Ginny howled when he pressed his tongue against her opening,

Virginia needed him, her body craved more contact. Nothing made sense any more, and nothing had to. Abe's kisses were on her throat, and she was wild in her delight. Nothing had ever felt so good. For so long since the mauling, nothing had felt… Nothing.

But this, this was life. This was running naked through the woods, alongside the deer and the mountain lions, and feeling herself queen over all creation. Ginny tugged his hair to bring her lover's mouth to her face, and she licked her own juices from Abe's chin.

The man wrapped his broad hands and strong arms around her, held her tight as he rubbed himself against her hip. They both needed to feel something, it seemed.

He set her body alight, but Ginny wasn't ready to sate his need before she got the chance to reciprocate. She wanted to _taste_ him.

Abe's cock jutted proudly from the gap in his leather breeches, and Ginny felt a little afraid. She'd never.. well, it looked deliciously big, as big around as her own skinny wrist, maybe, and she wasn't one to let fear of the unknown dominate her. Instead of over-thinking things, she devoured him in one swift gulp.

It almost gagged her, and she had no idea if she was doing it right, but she'd heard bawdy stories from her brothers all her life. She knew men liked this, and it made her feel deliciously wicked to tease his most sensitive flesh between her powerful jaws. She could destroy him like this, with pleasure or with pain, but as his hands buried in her long brown hair and he began to moan and beg, Ginny took pity on Abe.

The second she released him, he had her down on all fours and was mounting from behind. It thrilled her. The pain was minimal. Maybe he would have been more gentle, if he'd known it was her first time, but Virginia didn't want gentle. She wanted Abe — the hunter of all things — and she wanted him to fuck her.

Van Helsing didn't know up from down. Ginny was hot and wet and tight and practically howling for him to go faster. He could feel her walls wrenching around him, her hips bucking up wildly to meet his thrusts, and he felt himself about to come.

In a moment of sudden clarity, he spilled his seed onto the ground. Ginny didn't need any complications from him. She had a life, a home… he couldn't keep her. His order would not allow it.

They held one another close all day, until the bloody redness of dusk crept into the skyline. Both of them, looking back, would think of it as their one and only perfect memory.

Since the moon would be full that night, they decided to walk back to the village by its light. It had yet to crest over the horizon, but he knew from his charts that it would be high above them for most of the night. They might walk safely, his vampyre-fighting lover and he.

Suddenly, as they passed through a farmer's field, he felt Ginny freeze. She growled. Moonlight. He hadn't wanted to consider the possibility, but… she was going to change. Fool that he was, he'd forgotten himself. He'd been hunting monsters with a monster, only… only it wasn't a monster at all. It was his lovely Ginny, and the only creature alive who could keep up with him while he was hunting.

Van Helsing acted quickly, shoving a capsule of metal shavings down her throat as her teeth sharpened to bite. Ginny coughed and choked, but she did not transform into a beast.

"What… what's happening to me?"

Abe clutched her to his chest and pressed kisses into her hairline. "It's you. You're… you're marked. You're the wolf, Ginny."

"H..how?"

"The clawing. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I've been such a fool. You showed all the signs, but I never said… It happens every month.."

"…on the full moon," she finished for him. "Why didn't I change tonight?"

"I drugged you. It's poison, it's as likely to kill you as to work twice. I didn't know what else to do."

"You must kill me," she said. It would be alright, to die. Knowing that she'd had him, at least the one time.

"Ginny… I can't. I love you, more than anything, but I can't... I can't stay. I can't kill you. And I can't let you roam free. Promise me! Promise you'll bind yourself in chains on the night of the full moon, and that you'll live your life. I'll come for you, when my work is done and my order doesn't demand your head on a spike. We might be old and gray, but I'll still love you. I will, Ginny. Promise… promise you'll be careful?"

She would. Of course she would. They parted ways in the field, unable to bear the torment of seeing one another in pain.

And even now, three score of years later, with her crossbow in hand and Ruby sleeping in the other room, she was waiting for him. Despite everything, she still loved her clever Abe.

He would return to her, one day.

Widow Lucas would never tell him the truth, though. How the wolf found her in chains one night and left her carrying its cub.

Eventually her own transformations ceased. She thought of looking for him, but she had a daughter and a granddaughter to look after by then. Let him think she'd married some poor farmer, lived well and warmly. She never wanted him to know that all her life ever amounted to was a single, long night waiting to see him wrapped once more in dawnlight.


End file.
